Why the US national anthem is terrible - and perfect
Vox's Estelle Caswell and Joss Fong debate "The Star Spangled Banner"
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When Francis Scott Key attached his poem about the War of 1812 to a popular British song called "To Anacreon in Heaven," he kicked off over 200 years of painfully bad singing by patriotic Americans. The Star Spangled Banner became the official national anthem of the United States in 1931, but it had been used by the Army and Navy for decades before that and was popular from the start. One big problem? The melody wasn't exactly written for the masses, but for trained soloists.
Commentators pointed out early on that it was exceedingly difficult for most people to sing, suggesting that "America the Beautiful" might be a better alternative. Critics have noted that the music requires a uniquely wide vocal range, it's full of tricky intervals, and the lyrics are confusing and uninspiring.
But if you look at the national anthem as a sport, where we get to watch performers at the top of their game tackle the gauntlet that is the Star Spangled Banner, you may come to appreciate it. In this video, we debate whether the difficulty of the Star Spangled Banner is a feature or a bug for a national anthem.
Further reading:
Star-Spangled Banner: The Unlikely Story of America's National Anthem www.amazon.com/Star-Spangled-...
Star Spangled Music: starspangledmusic.org/
Slate: Proudly Hailed www.slate.com/articles/arts/mu...
Emily Cope: / music-to-what-extent-d...
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"America loves watching people publicly failed".
Vox: Why the US national anthem is terrible..
Basically...
I’m asian and one time my American english teacher made us sing star spangled banner for 5% of our grade. I’m still not sure why he did that but it was hilarious watching everyone (including me) tried to succeed in singing this song
Fun fact: The National Anthem ends with a question mark.
“All Star” by Smashmouth is the unofficial anthem
I actually really like José Feliciano’s performance of that anthem
It's just like America to pick The Star Spangled Banner because it is stylish. It's meant to be performed, not sung. And when it is, it sounds amazing. It's just hard to connect a nation to something half of us can't remember and no one can sing. The thing about every other choice they highlighted is you can sing them without training
Oh, American schools have a national anthem too.
Fact: Whitney Houston's performance of the "Star Spangled Banner" can make anyone feel American.
In elementary we would sing the anthem
It's kinda sad its own people can't actually sing it. We see it in sports events the crowds like Brazilians, for exemple, proudly singing their entire anthem and it gives you goosebumps, but its silent when the anthem is too difficult to sing.
the spanish anthem is the easiest to sing in the entire world... it's got no words.
I'm gonna sing the Spanish anthem for you
Fun fact: Even though Whitney Houston's SSB was prerecorded (which is extremely common for sporting events, especially ones that include fly-overs, as hers did), she recorded it a few months before in ONE TAKE. So, though she didn't sing it on the field, that's still all her!
Phillipines singing national anthem on
The title should be more like.
i feel like every asian country sings their national anthem like,, every morning or once a week for the school assembly :')
A good anthem is one that either: